


for once in my life (let me get what i want)

by yesterday



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alive Hale Family, Character Study, Codependency, Found Family, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Panic Attack, Past Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-22
Updated: 2018-04-22
Packaged: 2019-04-26 10:03:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14399796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yesterday/pseuds/yesterday
Summary: Chris tries to remember what it’s like to want something for himself without thinking of the consequences. He doesn’t know. What he does know is that he wants Peter. He wants to be able to love Peter without worrying about Gerard hearing that his son has taken up with a werewolf. He wants to be able to walk down the street in broad daylight with Peter, go to restaurants and the movies together. He wants so much that he can’t have.That wanting will end in tragedy, he’s sure of it.





	for once in my life (let me get what i want)

**Author's Note:**

> A big thank you to [TriDom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TriDom/pseuds/TriDom) for reading this over and making invaluable suggestions! And another thanks to Mal for the title. 
> 
> I originally wrote this for the object lesson prompt of Petopher week, but since everything I had written for the week was short, I decided I wanted to extend this and flesh it out. Then it got away from me and took way longer than intended, oops. Regardless, enjoy!

Peter brings it up on his seventeenth birthday. He’s wearing a new coat, all soft dark suede and shearling detailing. Chris resists the urge to make a joke about a wolf in sheep’s skin, but just barely. Peter’s sharp edges are all smoothed out by the coat, and he looks irresistible and touchable. They’re walking in the dark. Chris snuck out of his bedroom window an hour ago and met Peter at their usual spot. 

There is a small cardboard box in his jacket pocket that he fishes out while they walk, handing it to Peter who takes it with a look of delight and a flash of white teeth under the moonlight. 

“You shouldn’t have, Christopher,” he says. He doesn’t mean it. 

“Open it,” Chris says. 

Peter lifts the lid. A watch is inside. The face is round and a blue a few shades darker than Peter’s eyes, the hours and hands a gleaming silver. The strap is black leather. On the back is an engraving. Peter hasn’t seen it yet, but his eyes are already liquid and stuck on Chris. “You really shouldn’t have.” 

“You only turn seventeen once.” And Peter had been so damn excited about it. Chris isn’t much for birthdays. He’s been seventeen for months now. It doesn’t feel much different from sixteen or fifteen and he’s pretty sure eighteen won’t be too different, but it’s special for Peter and he couldn’t help getting caught up in the anticipation. It didn’t cost as much as it could have anyway, and he had savings. 

“Put it on me?” 

Chris accepts the watch. He wraps the strap around Peter’s wrist, buckling it into place and something settles in him. He likes it, seeing Peter wearing something he bought for him. It goes well with Peter’s new coat. Chris tugs Peter in by the same wrist, the cold metal and glass of the watch under his palm, and kisses him. 

“Happy birthday,” he tells Peter after they part. They're leaning into each other, bodies pressed together. 

“This is the best one I've had so far,” says Peter, cuddling against Chris, rubbing his face against his neck. He presses Chris against a tree, and Chris hisses. Peter freezes. Chris does too. He can’t make Peter unhear the sound and he can’t take it back. 

“It’s nothing,” he says. 

“It doesn’t sound like nothing.” 

“I’m fine.”

Peter’s frown deepens. The skip of Chris’s heart will have given him away, but sometimes when Peter is feeling kind he won’t mention it. On the other hand, it’s Peter, who likes to worry at things the way a persistent terrier does— until he’s satisfied. Peter’s hand is warm when he rests it on Chris, another wrinkle denting his forehead when he pulls the pain from Chris. Chris sways into it, all the hurt he got used to carrying lifting from him, his body going light. Too late, he grabs Peter’s wrist. “You don’t need to.” 

“I want to.” Peter sighs. “I wish you’d just told me. I could’ve done it earlier.” 

“Didn’t notice it until just then,” Chris says. 

“Was it from a hunt?” 

Chris makes a vague noise. 

They stay there for a while, sinking down to sit at the base of the tree. Peter is a comfort at his side and he doesn’t say anything else for once. Instead, he curls into Chris, careful in how he does it. Chris rests his chin on top of Peter’s dark hair and inhales. He smells faintly of vanilla. 

“I was going to wait,” Peter says suddenly, “before I said anything. But I don’t think I can anymore. Chris.”

“What?”

“I’m going to go to school on the East Coast next year,” Peter says. 

“Oh,” Chris says. He doesn’t know what else to say and fumbles for the right words, everything thick as molasses and clumsy on his tongue. “That’s great. Good.” Is Peter breaking up with him? “It’s far, isn’t it? From your pack.” From me. 

“It’s far from Beacon Hills, yes.” Peter is worrying his lips, a tell that he hasn’t managed to hide yet, but probably will have in a few years. He takes a breath to speak, but Chris beats him to it. 

“Why not somewhere in state?” 

“Well,” Peter says, “I wanted a change of pace. I thought… Chris, will you come with me? To Boston. It’s a big city. Big enough to get lost in.”

He hears what Peter isn’t saying between the lines. Big enough to hide in, big enough for Gerard to never find you again. Everything in him aches. Peter would do it. He would put thousands of miles between himself and his pack just to try and keep Chris safe.

But could he keep Peter safe?

“If my dad finds out, he’ll—”

“He won’t. I have a plan, you know I do. Mom’s going to help me, everyone is.” 

“Gerard will kill them.”

“No he won’t,” Peter says, “why would he? He doesn’t know about us. We’ll stagger the dates, I know you mentioned that he was trying to send you off to some kind of military school. Make like you’re leaving for it and don’t show up. Come to Boston with me.”

“Peter,” Chris says, unable to say anything coherent. The panic is swelling to a crescendo in him and it’s only a matter of time before he shuts down out of sheer self preservation. Because that’s what he’s taught to do. Compartmentalise. 

“Chris.” Peter cups his face in his hands. “For once in your life, let yourself have this.” 

And Chris stops. Leans into the cradle of Peter’s palms. Tries to remember what it’s like to want something for himself without thinking of the consequences. He doesn’t know. What he does know is that he wants Peter. He wants to be able to love Peter without worrying about Gerard hearing that his son has taken up with a werewolf. He wants to be able to walk down the street in broad daylight with Peter, go to restaurants and the movies together. He wants so much that he can’t have. 

That wanting will end in tragedy, he’s sure of it. 

“Let yourself have this,” Peter repeats. 

But his mother told him something once in a far off memory. She said this: we don't always live as long we should, darling. So when you find that scrap of happiness, that one thing you never want to lose, you hang onto it. Don't let it go. 

Chris finds Peter’s hands and covers them with his own. What would he scent from himself if he had Peter’s senses? Desperation? Longing? No doubt Peter can hear the absolute panic of his heart. But as he tangles their fingers together and leans in against Peter, their foreheads touching, it slows down to something steadier. When he’s with Peter, all of the noise and static in his head fades. He doesn’t want to lose this. 

So he hangs on tight and says, “Tell me the plan.”  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Chris changes his mind on a million occasions, always gets close to telling Peter they have to call it off, scared not for himself, but for Peter and his pack and what Gerard would do to them if he found out. A hundred different ways this can go wrong crosses through his mind, each worse than the last. 

But at the same time, it sustains him. 

After every training session, every lash of Gerard’s anger and disappointment in him, Chris holds the knowledge that soon he could live how he wanted to close. He’s never asked for anything else in his life or ever wanted something as badly as a future where he doesn’t hunt, which is a strange feeling. He was raised to be a hunter and hunting has been his whole life. What is he without it? What can he be? 

“You can be anything you want to be,” Peter tells him because they’re seventeen and have the sprawl of the rest of their lives stretched out before them. 

“I want to be with you,” Chris tells him. The confession shakes him, nearly doesn’t make it off his tongue, but his mind is made up.

Ten months later and four months after Chris turns eighteen, he leaves Beacon Hills behind. Gets on a bus so that Gerard thinks he’s going to Maryland, but Chris goes further upstate. 

Boston in August is sweltering. The heat hits Chris in the face the instant he steps off of the air conditioned coach and finds Peter waiting at the depot, craning his head and scanning the line of people for him. Chris watches him light up the instant he sees (probably scents) Chris too. All the anxieties and worries in him melt away. Nobody else in his life has ever loved him as wholly as Peter does, never looked at him like he was everything to them. It’s a little overwhelming, a lot staggering, and filled with impossible happiness. 

Peter winds through the crowd and seizes Chris in a fierce hug, burying his face against his neck. Any thought Chris had of not coming and letting Gerard pack him obediently off to military school vanishes. How could he have ever thought of giving this up? 

Chris holds Peter just as tightly, breathing in the warm scent of him, fingers digging into his back. 

“Missed you,” Peter says afterwards. “Is that all you brought?” 

Chris has a backpack slung over one shoulder and a duffle bag in his hand. “Not all of us need an entire truck’s worth of our things when we move, Peter. This is all I need.” 

“I’m going to be living here for ages, Christopher. Of course I’m bringing everything. And you know the truck was mostly for the motorcycle.”

“Mostly,” Chris teases, slinging his arm around Peter. His eyes scan the area. Everyone is dispersing slowly from the bus, others waiting for their next connection. Nothing out of the ordinary. 

“Come on,” Peter says, leading Chris off. 

The aforementioned motorcycle is waiting for them in the parking lot, paint job buffed to a sheen. They zoom from the bus depot into the city, Chris clutching Peter, his duffle bag jammed in between them precariously. Boston blurs by in colour. Chris has never been before, though they passed by New York a couple years ago on a hunt. 

Peter parks behind of a tall, buttery yellow house with white trim. A huge leafy oak in the front yard hides it partially from view. Chris climbs off the motorcycle, examining his new surroundings. Peter grabs his hand and takes him around the house, leading him up the steps. The front door is also white. According to Peter, this is his great-uncle’s house. Peter has to live in the dormitories along with the other freshman as per tradition, but at least he’ll have somewhere to retreat to when dorm life gets to be too much. 

After Peter closes the door behind them, he gives Chris the key. 

“That’s yours. Don’t lose it.” 

Chris wraps his hand around it. The edges dig into his palm. He glances at Peter. “I’ll keep it safe. Show me my room?”

Peter’s smile goes sly and his voice goes hot. “I thought you’d never ask.”  
  
  
  
  
  
  
The first year is the hardest. 

Chris never stops looking over his shoulder, terrified that Gerard will show up if he lets his guard down for even a moment. August passes by in a haze of tense anticipation. Peter’s not due to start classes until fall but arrived early to acclimate. He’s sheltered with the local pack— his great uncle’s— but it makes little difference, really. Here in the city, the supernatural hide in plain sight. Werewolf territories aren’t so much territories as they are little chunks of space they’ve carved out for themselves and share, Peter explains to him one muggy evening, the window of their sunshine house opened to catch the fabled sea breeze. 

They explore Cambridge and Boston together, scouting out the best places to eat— the little Indian place tucked between the laundromat and the cafe, Peter always says. Chris disagrees and harbors a secret fondness for the Portuguese place two blocks in the other direction from their house— but mostly he revels in the fact that this is everything he’s ever wanted:

Sweat beads Peter’s neckline. He’s swept his hair up from his forehead and is tugging at the collar of his shirt, muttering something about how fucking hot it is, how humid, how he wants a lemonade, all under the bright morning sunshine. The heat squeezes down on them from all sides. Chris is just better at ignoring it than Peter is. They’re walking towards the Boston Public Garden because Chris admitted to wanting to ride the swan boats, and once Peter was done teasing him he agreed to it. 

Being on the water helps a little. Peter eyes the swan boat with his nose in the air. Chris nudges him, almost shoving him off the boarding dock and into the water. “Snob.”

“Try that again and I’ll drag you in with me,” Peter threatens. 

“I wouldn’t mind,” Chris says, shrugging. “Or we can just get on the boat and hope there’ll be a breeze once it gets moving.” 

There is. It ruffles through Chris’s hair and makes it bearable when Peter leans his shoulder against Chris’s, both of them watching the gardens go by around them, green and resplendent. They get Peter’s lemonade afterwards, outside of the gardens, and stop at a nearby deli to buy sandwiches before heading back in to eat them on the grassy sprawl of the park. 

They do everything wonderful and touristy they can think of in the following weeks. Peter falls in love with the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and Chris follows him in a happy daze. For a few hours, the outside world recedes and there is only the cool, climate controlled rooms filled with artwork, the thick haze of turpentine just as much a feature as the framed paintings on the walls. No one would think to look for Chris here where he isn’t Christopher Argent, but just Chris. Another visitor to the museum, possibly dragged along by family on vacation. 

“I’m sorry, Chris, but I’ve made up my mind. I’m going to live here for the rest of my life.” Peter is hanging halfway out of the balcony overlooking the fantastical courtyard, which is lush with bluebells and green, airy fronds of every sort. 

Nobody else is around. Chris leans his chest against Peter’s back, kissing his neck. “Sure you are. Hell of a commute to school, though.” 

“Worth it,” Peter says, tipping his head to the side lazily and reaching up to run his hands through Chris’s hair. 

They split apart when a crowd of tourists turn around the corner towards them, trailing after the tour guide like a group of ducklings, harmless and loud.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Thing is, Chris doesn’t want to rely on the Hale generosity, on Peter’s generosity entirely. He turned down Louisa's— Peter's mom— offer to help him pay for school. Chris has savings scraped together from odd jobs here and there. It isn’t that he doesn’t want to go to college. He just never thought much of it, always figured that he’d end up having to do whatever Gerard wanted him to do. Now, he can do what he wants. 

(But because old habits die hard, he has his favourite gun stashed under his bed in the house along with his favourite knife. Peter would accuse him of paranoia or just give him an assessing look if he knew, so Chris never tells him. He cleans it weekly.) 

He gets a job at a local mechanic shop. The motorcycle Peter hauled all the way from California was Peter’s first, but they worked on it together more often than not. Chris has a knack for fixing things up. It fills up the time when Peter’s away at Harvard, learning whatever it is smartasses like him learn in school. Chris figures he’ll save up some money, enroll at a local college the next year. He has the paperwork for it, touched up by someone the Hales knew, and all of his ID, also made by someone the Hales knew. The name on them reads Christopher Halh. Not Hale. That would have been too close, too easily traced. 

It’s strange to no longer be an Argent, not quite Hale. Like some part of him is adrift and rootless. 

Chris walks home from work in a winding loop, down Prospect onto Hampshire, into a little side street, then back onto his own street. The porch light is on, but that's because Chris left it on earlier. Peter won't be back until the weekend. 

Their next door neighbour is watering her hydrangeas. She waves Chris over and tells him to hold on a moment while she disappears inside her house. 

“Cannelloni,” she says, exhaling a long drag of her cigarette when Chris says thank you, holding the ceramic, tinfoil covered dish in his hands gingerly. “Warm it up in the oven for fifteen minutes.”

“I'll bring the dish back when I'm done.”

“Take your time, kid,” she says. 

The cannelloni is good and cheesy and he burns his tongue on it because he's too impatient to wait for it to cool down. He eats it while leaning against the kitchen island, only half the lights on, fork in one hand and his oven mitt covered palm pressed against the heated ceramic. Chris saves the rest for lunch the next day and brings the dish back the following evening.

Leslie— the neighbour— invites Chris inside. He stands awkwardly in her kitchen while she copies down the recipe on a piece of notebook paper from a huge, stained book and gives it to Chris in exchange for the returned dish. Mint and parsley and basil grow in little pots on the windowsill in front of her sink. A pan of brownies is cooling on the counter. Everything is suffused with chocolate and sugar and the warmth of a hot oven. Chris finds it a little suffocating. But he gets the recipe and a ziplock bag full of brownies. 

Chris ventures out to the supermarket on Friday. Leslie’s recipe is folded up in the pocket of his jeans. He smoothes out the creases and roams the aisles, filling up his basket with frozen pasta sheets, garlic and tomatoes, and three kinds of cheese. He’s finishing up at the register when he sees a quasi-familiar face. His training kicks in a second late and his eyes skim past the man dressed in utilitarian clothing, military style jacket and dark colours— maybe that’s it, that’s all. No recognition passes between them.

Heart pounding, mouth dry, Chris walks with deliberate casualness out of the store. He doesn’t let himself look over his shoulder until two blocks later, where he pauses in front of a bookstore window display. 

Nobody is following him. 

Not to the Italian deli, nor the long way home, Chris backtracking and going off course several times. 

Was that a hunter he’s worked with before? Does it matter? Is his dad even looking for him? He has to be— Gerard will see Chris leaving as a rebellion, and if there’s one thing he’s never tolerated, it’s Chris moving against his will. 

More importantly: should he tell Peter? 

In the end, he decides not to. He’s been looking over his shoulder since he left Beacon Hills. Maybe he’s feeling the strain of it, seeing things where there isn’t anything. 

But in the following weeks he finds himself disassembling and reassembling his gun, cleaning it and checking its mechanism, every other night. He sleeps with it within arm’s reach and startles awake at every sound, heart pounding. 

When he goes for his habitual run before breakfast, he never takes the same route, running away from the house. Once, he catches himself looping towards Harvard’s manicured lawns and race track before realising he would be leading anyone following him right to Peter and heads back towards residential areas again. Quieter areas, where he would notice someone tailing him in an instant. 

Again, nobody ever is. 

Just when he’s convinced himself that he made a mistake, he sees the man again— this time at the Italian deli, because Peter has been craving the cannelloni again. 

Chris examines the meat section with more interest than he feels. He holds his breath. The gun is strapped in its shoulder holster. But nothing happens. The man doesn’t approach him, just buys his salami and leaves. Chris wills his hands steady when he takes his wallet out to pay. He checks the time when he’s done— if he leaves now he can catch Peter before he starts his walk over here. By motorcycle the route to Harvard only takes five, ten minutes tops. 

Peter usually heads back to his dorm first after class, dropping off unnecessary books and whatever else. Chris does his best to look inconspicuous loitering in front of the building, helmet tucked under one arm. He sees Peter before Peter sees him, head bent in conversation with another student, gesturing animatedly. 

“Hey,” he says. 

Peter’s head shoots up. He smiles, eyes very blue in the light of the beautiful fall day. “Chris.” He makes his excuses to his acquaintance, waiting for him to vanish inside the building before tilting his face in to rub his cheek against Chris’s. “Did you come all this way to pick me up?” 

“It only takes five minutes.” 

“You’re going to make all my housemates gossip about my older boyfriend, whisking me away for the weekend on his bike.” 

“You think you're so funny,” Chris says, the smile tugging at his lips. 

“I’m hilarious.” 

“I can leave you here and make you walk.” 

Peter laughs. He motions for Chris to follow him inside, the two of them ambling through the halls until they reach Peter’s room. It’s scrupulously clean because Peter’s kind of a neat freak. He shrugs off his jacket and rearranges his bag, zipping it shut after. 

Chris has installed himself at Peter’s desk and is snooping judiciously through the papers and books on it. He looks up when Peter inserts himself between Chris’s legs. 

“Can I help you with something?” he says. 

“Well, I was going to help myself, but now that you mention it—” 

Chris tugs Peter down by the front of his shirt and crushes their lips together. He can feel Peter’s shoulders shaking from laughter, but that subsides into an entirely different kind of trembling when Chris pulls him onto his lap and undoes his jeans. They frot against each other messily, just like that, hands tangled and sliding hot. Chris revels in the solid weight of Peter grinding against him, the constant drag of his incisors over his neck and tongue following. Peter’s groaned exhale of his name against his ear is what tips him over the edge. 

Later, when Peter is grating a mountain of cheese for the cannelloni, he asks Chris, “Are you okay?” 

Chris concentrates on dicing the garlic finely. He doesn’t want to worry Peter, but this isn’t only about him. “The other day, I thought I saw someone I knew earlier. From before.” 

“A hunter.” 

“Yeah. But I don’t think he recognised me. I figured maybe I saw wrong, except I saw him again today.” 

“I’ll call home,” Peter says. “Get them to keep an eye on Gerard’s movements and make sure he wasn’t tipped off.” 

“It could be nothing.” 

“Just in case.” 

Chris sets the knife down on the cutting board. He wraps his arms around Peter, who turns half towards him and embraces him, block of cheese and grater in hands and all. The rush of gratitude is unprecedented and confusing— it’s overwhelming knowing that he has someone in his corner. Peter, who didn’t ask him if he’s sure, _maybe you saw wrong, Chris_ , but whose every word and action says instead that he’ll take care of Chris, he trusts Chris’s judgement. 

His exhale is shuddery and on the verge of collapse, face buried against Peter’s shoulder. Gerard would call him weak if he could see him now. He’d tell Chris that the only person he can rely on in times like these is himself. A soldier can’t waver on the battlefield, can’t expect sympathy. 

He isn’t part of that world anymore. Beside him is Peter’s unwavering support and the unconditional acceptance of the Hale pack, however initially hesitant and reliant on Peter’s wheedling it was. 

If Peter is the last thing in his life to ever go right for Chris, that would be fine by him.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Louisa reassures them that Gerard has not only moved on from Beacon Hills, but is in Arizona. She promises to keep them updated if he starts to move east. 

“Thank you,” Chris says uncertainly into the phone. 

“You don’t need to thank me, honey. Don’t you worry too much about it. His hands are tied legally, what with you being an adult and all.” 

What goes unsaid is everything Gerard is capable of doing outside the law. 

“Still,” Chris says, “thank you.” 

“You’re pack. Now, give the phone to Peter. It’s been too long since I heard his voice, he never calls back when he’s supposed to.” 

Chris listens to Peter give increasingly ridiculous excuses to his mom about why he hasn’t called home for two weeks. The last one that has Louisa cackling like a hyena so loud that Chris can hear it from the receiver is Peter’s bald faced lie about the ghost of Alexander Bell haunting their phone and using it to make every call he’s ever wanted to for science. He wrestles the phone from Peter’s grip, tells Louisa he’ll make sure Peter calls regularly from now on and says good night.

“You're safe,” Peter says against Chris’s hair later, slotted up behind him in their bed.

Chris curls himself into a tighter ball, eyes squeezed shut. Peter repeats himself, telling Chris that he’s safe here over and over. It isn’t him he’s worried about. It’s Peter and his pack who have done everything for him. 

“I wonder how Katie’s doing,” he mumbles against his pillow.

“Probably fine.” 

Peter’s likely right. She’s always been his dad’s favourite. “Maybe he isn’t even looking for me. Why would he? He doesn’t know I ran off with a werewolf.” 

Chris is eighteen going on nineteen, an adult in the eyes of the law. But Gerard has always been controlling in a way that Peter’s told him, time and again, isn’t healthy. He can’t see his dad just letting him disappear and not doing something about it. Chris is his son. Or maybe he’s waiting for Chris to come slinking back with his tail between his legs. 

Maybe the question he doesn’t want to ask is, does his dad even care? 

He’s tried for years to gain Gerard’s approval, which was a rare treat, few and far instances in between. Chris remembers the moments of pride— when Chris killed his first omega and Gerard had clapped him on the shoulder, told him he’d done well while Chris struggled not to throw up, bile rising in the back of his throat. His approval when Chris finally perfected his skill with a knife or when Chris successfully identified a set of teeth marks left on a body. 

But there was the bad too. There was Gerard shouting at Chris, telling him he was going to get himself killed, get them all killed if he didn’t do what he was told. There was the crack of a palm over his face when he did something wrong, and a million other injuries he has scars enough to remember by. Everything the harsh sides of his training encompassed and then some. 

“That’s what we want, remember? We don’t want him to think you’re with me.” 

And they’d been careful about it. Painstakingly concealed every aspect of their relationship. 

Peter sighs, a soft, tired exhale. He says, “I think he’s looking for you, but not for the reasons which you imagine.” 

Chris doesn’t ask Peter for the reasons. Peter, who can’t be anyone else but Peter, gives them to him anyway.

“He won’t be able to stand the idea that you’ve managed to escape his clutches,” Peter says. “You’re one of his pieces on the board— you don’t get to make your own decisions, he dictates them. He sees you as a tool, Chris. He always has.” 

Peter doesn’t try to soften his words. He’s never liked Gerard, not since the first time he found the bruises mottling the side of Chris’s chest, the fractured ribs under tender skin that made Chris stifle a gasp between gritted teeth when Peter ghosted his fingers over him. Peter, too clever by far, made the connection after enough prodding. 

“Men like Gerard Argent loathe insubordination. He’ll try to find you if only to prove that he’s the one in control, not you.” 

“He raised me. He taught me everything I know. He’s my dad.” 

“He raised you to be a hunter. He didn’t raise you as his son.” 

Chris makes a terrible noise at that, the back of his throat burning. He swallows it back. 

Peter shifts behind him. He leans over Chris in the moonlight, cupping his face and forcing Chris to look him in the eye. “But you’re so much more than what he tried to mold you into. Never forget that, Chris.” 

Try as he might, Chris has never been able to bury himself beneath apathy when he’s around Peter. He’s never wanted to. Peter is his refuge, his only harbor. He can show his weaknesses to Peter because he trusts him to take care. It’s stupid and reckless and Chris knows Peter can be cruel when he wants to be but none of that matters. All his walls are down, everything he’s ever tried to bury and lock away rising back up to the surface. He can’t hold back the tears. They streak down his face, salty and hot. He cries silently, Peter holding him through it.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Peter makes Chris drink a bottle of water before dragging him out shopping the next day, citing a wardrobe makeover as a good way to throw any hunters who might accidentally spot him off the trail. 

“But I like my clothes,” Chris says. 

“You’re used to them, there’s a difference.” 

Chris rolls his eyes. He doesn’t mind too much so long as Peter doesn’t try to put him in something ridiculous. Which is why when Peter hands him a stack of soft sweaters and dark wash jeans, he takes them without protest and tries them on. They’re nicer than anything he would’ve picked out for himself, the weave plush against his skin. The dark colour brings out his eyes. It also isn’t something he would have picked, and it’s just a damn sweater, but the overall effect— Peter’s right. He doesn’t look like himself. He looks like someone who would rather be curled up indoors with a good book, even in his worn out boots, than a hunter. Something about the overall effect is a little pretentious, a little preppy. But he doesn’t hate it. 

From outside the fitting room, Peter says, “I’m waiting.” 

“This isn’t a fashion show,” Chris mutters. 

“I heard that.” 

Chris goes out before Peter can yank the door open and let himself in, because he would, raising an eyebrow. “Satisfied?” 

Peter looks him up and down, a slow drag of his eyes. He purrs out, “Oh, very. We’re getting that. We should get you a nicer coat too, the weather’s starting to turn. Your fragile little human self will turn into a popsicle if we don’t.” 

“Doesn’t seem like a problem to me when I have my own personal walking heater.” 

“I’m going to start charging.” 

“Sure you will.” 

“You’re lucky I like you so much,” Peter says. 

Chris smiles. “Yeah, I am.” He catches Peter’s hand and kisses his palm. “You were saying something about coats?”  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Slowly, Chris relaxes. He lives out the normal rhythm of his life—work, weekends and sometimes weeknights with Peter, going to Peter’s varsity basketball games, slowly learning how to cook with the help of Leslie from next door, whom he’s fairly sure is a witch. Chris doesn’t go to a gun range— hunters get frequent practice— but sets up a crossbow target in their backyard, and on one memorable occasion, Peter offers himself as a moving target, catching the bolts or dodging them before they hit. Some nights when they’re nestled up together in bed, Chris spills every secret to Peter that he’s never considered telling before. Hunter’s honour. 

He tells Peter the dirtiest and slyest tricks a hunter will pull, they compare knowledge on the effects of different strains of wolfsbane, Chris goes over basic hunting tactics. Peter drinks it all up because he’s a survivor by nature and believes there is no such thing as knowing too much. 

They don’t fight, not much. Not seriously, anyway. Peter picks squabbles with Chris over the most mundane of things and they bicker, but living with Peter is comfortable. Sometimes it feels like he’s been doing it for years. 

Time slips by. 

Chris applies to a college. Peter can go to his Ivy League school and get his fancy education, but Chris is still fumbling his way through things, trying to decide what he wants to do. His job at the mechanic’s pays well enough. Question is, is that something he wants to do forever? 

After Peter’s junior year and Chris’s freshman year, they make a road trip back to Beacon Hills. The sunshine house is locked up, the motorcycle stashed safely in the shed, Leslie asked to keep an eye on things while they’re gone with the promise of a souvenir brought back for her. Chris has a Jeep Grand Cherokee that he bought second hand from a careless, blue blood owner that ran her into the ground six months in and washed his hands of her, restored back into pristine condition. His first car. 

They drive it cross country, Chris revving the engine and flooring the gas on long, empty stretches of highway, Peter whooping in shotgun. It takes them a week to get back to California, the two of them stopping and detouring to sightsee. 

The closer they get to Beacon Hills, the antsier Peter gets. He’s hanging halfway out the window. Chris almost wants to grab the back of his shirt and pull him back in, he’s in that precarious an angle.

“Down, boy,” Chris says. 

Peter twists around and snaps his teeth at him. 

Chris should probably stop giving Peter shit for being excited to be back with his pack, in his family’s territory, when the same thrum of anticipation, half anxiety and half excitement, is coursing through him. 

The town hasn’t changed much since they were last here. Chris turns onto the stretch of gravel road leading through the preserve to the pack house, which rises into view. A few kids are playing in the garden, one of Peter’s cousins supervising on the porch with a glass of something cold. She looks up when the car crunches to a stop. 

“Aunt Louisa, Peter and Chris are here!” 

Chris and Peter exit the car. The kids have stopped their play, a little dark haired boy who Chris thinks is Peter’s nephew is peeking at them from behind an older girl— Laura— fidgeting and very obviously wanting to greet them but too shy to do so. Peter has no such reservations. He strides up to Laura, ruffles her hair while she shrieks and protests, and lifts Derek up into his arms, swinging him around overhead. Derek laughs, sweet and clear. 

“Want some help?” Laura asks. She’s ditched the family reunion that’s gaining traction on the lawn and is standing by Chris, who is unloading a series of souvenirs from the trunk. 

“Sure. These are for all of you.” He hands her a cardboard box mostly full of cookies and whatnot, watches her eyes light up. 

“Thanks, Uncle Chris!” she says, bolting off with the box into the house. Chris blinks.

Near the porch steps, Derek is clinging to Peter’s legs while Louisa rubs her cheek against his and clucks over him. Peter is such a mama’s boy, and it shows. 

Chris is in the process of hauling his duffle bag out of the trunk when he hears Louisa call him. 

“Leave those, honey. Someone will get them. Come over here, let me get a good look at you.” 

He finds himself hauled in and manhandled through the same process Peter was, the scenting and the careful inspection followed by an all encompassing hug. Louisa is tall, eye level with Chris. She’s warm and smells faintly like honeysuckle. Chris freezes when she folds her arms around him, eyes finding Peter, who isn’t even bothering to hide his smirk. 

“Welcome home,” she says. 

Chris closes his eyes and hugs her back, resting his chin on Louisa’s shoulder. He can’t bring himself to say anything, but she seems to understand anyway. 

Dinner is rambunctious and loud, with what seems like the entire Hale pack running around the backyard, taking up every inch of space on the picnic table benches. Chris is crammed in next to Peter, surrounded by various Hales. Everyone pushes food on them like they think they’re starving college students which is a vastly untrue assumption— Chris finds the rhythm of cooking soothing and Peter likes to try and prove he can make any dish better than Chris can. They eat okay. 

“I ate too much,” Peter complains, popping open the button on his jeans, weight heavy against Chris’s side. 

“I told you to stop after the second slice of pie.” Chris has no pity for him. 

“But it’s incredible pie, Chris. You have to make me some, promise me. I’ll get you the recipe. Wait, try a bite of it first—”

“I’ll pass, I’m full. Stop. Peter, knock it off!” 

Peter does not stop. Peter tries his best to stuff a forkful of apple pie in Chris’s mouth, holding him by the shoulder. Chris parries. Both of them lose their balance and topple off the bench in a tangle of limbs. There’s pie in Chris’s hair, he’s pretty sure, but he’s laughing so hard and Peter is too, that it doesn’t matter.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
The puppy happens two weeks into their vacation, a squirming mass of fur and floppy ears and too silly to realise what Peter is because she barrels into his ankles while the two of them are walking through the preserve, yapping her head off. She tries to herd them, circling around and around until Peter scoops her up. No collar, no trailing leash. 

Peter holds her up at face level; she slobbers all over him. He laughs and flashes his eyes at her but she only gets more excited. “She’s sweet. Look, Chris. Her eyes match yours.” 

“Someone must have lost her,” Chris says. He doesn’t pet her. Some hunters used dogs on hunts, mostly for tracking. 

“Let her sniff your hand.” 

Chris holds out his hand. She sniffs at his fingers, then tries to put them in her mouth. Her coat is a little matted, the merle pattern doing a good job of concealing the dirt and mud on her. A little skinny. Chris glances at the direction she shot out from. 

“Maybe her owners lost her,” he says, slowly tracing her steps, following the crushed leaves and tracks. 

Peter follows him, puppy held in his arms. They follow the trail for a good half an hour, but nothing comes of it. 

One look at Peter tells Chris what he already knows. They end up taking the puppy back to the house, where she is cooed over and adored, and giving her a bath before taking her to the local veterinarian. She's checked over and given a clean bill of health aside from being somewhat underweight. 

Dr. Tilburg, the vet, tells them no one has lost a small, hyperactive,Australian shepherd that he knows of. 

“I can keep her here and take her to the shelter unless you'd prefer to do that yourself. Or better yet, hang onto her. They're a smart breed, good dogs,” he says.

“We're keeping her,” says Peter immediately and launches into a series of questions about puppy care and training.

“Who's going to look after her?” Chris says.

Peter looks at him like he's said something idiotic beyond belief. “Us, of course. We're her new parents.”

“What, I don't get a say in this?” 

“Look at her face, Chris,” Peter says, holding her up. The dog grins on cue, tongue lolling out of her mouth, tail wagging furiously, “how can you possibly say no?” 

People rarely say no to Peter. Not only is he charming and knows it, but he’s also the youngest of three siblings— spoiled, coddled, adored— and it shows. Sometimes Chris disagrees with him on a principle, but in this case, well. The dog is pretty cute. He’s always wondered what it’d be like to have one. 

“Fine,” he says, stealing her from Peter and scratching her under the chin. “We’ll keep her.” 

Peter’s face lights up and he turns back to the vet, wrapping up their conversation on pet care. 

Chris would adopt a hundred puppies to see that look on Peter’s face over and over again.

They name her Stella despite Peter’s conviction that she had it in her to be a Christine (won’t that be cute, Chris? she’ll be like a mini you) and she takes to the pack like a duck to water. Talia’s shoes are a frequent victim of savaging and no amount of growling from Peter’s older sister can make Stella leave them alone, at least until Chris tells her to leave it. She’s fearless around the wolves. 

“Why would she be scared of us?” Louisa says when Chris mentions it offhand one day. “None of us have given her any reason to be. All she knows is that we feed her, we’re kind to her, and we’ve never hurt her. Love and acceptance are easy to foster under those conditions.”

“Instinct?” Chris says. 

“Can be overcome by the mind, by emotion. The first time you saw a werewolf, I bet you were scared, weren’t you? But you got used to it. Your brain told you that you had ways of fighting against it.” 

Chris stares across the lawn, where Peter’s valiantly trying to teach Stella to fetch. She savages the toy he’s tossing more often than not, sometimes returning with a choice twig or pinecone instead. 

“It’s nature and nurture, Chris. Doesn’t have to be one or the other.” 

“But your nature can change depending on your upbringing,” Chris says. 

Louisa’s voice is gentle. “Sure. But that doesn’t mean you can’t recognise that you aren’t the person you want to be and change into something else. People aren’t set in stone, generally. You don’t think we’re monsters anymore, do you?” 

Chris flinches. “No. You’ve done so much for me, all of you.” He glances down at his hands, then back at Louisa. Her eyes are the same cornflower blue as Peter’s. “I don’t know if I ever thought werewolves were monsters. But it’s like you said, that’s what I was taught growing up. Maybe I convinced myself it was the truth somewhere along the way.” 

“And then you changed your mind.”

“Yeah, I did.” 

Louisa pats him on the knee and stands. “There you go.” She heads into the house. 

Stella bounces up to Chris and drops a soggy tennis ball at his feet. He picks her up instead and pets her until Peter comes over to demand the same treatment, the two of them kissing on the porch with Stella barking, ecstatic, in between.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Their last day in Beacon Hills is a beach day. The entire pack is converged at the lake, blankets spread out on the sandy sprawl before the water, hampers of food and drinks whipped up in a group effort by everyone over five who had hands. Most of it is finger food, though Joseph, Talia’s husband, has the grill going. It’s hot and sunny, a perfect California day. 

Peter, his head pillowed on Chris’s lap, book open and held over his face, peers at Chris over the rim of his sunglasses. 

“What?” Chris says.

“I’m just thinking.” 

“About?”

“You,” Peter says, “and how much I adore you.” 

Chris winds his fingers through Peter’s hair, petting. “Sap.”

Peter puts his book down and smiles up at Chris, wide and brilliant. He drags Chris along with him into the water. Stella flicks one ear at them but stays where she is, snoozing and worn out from digging endless holes into the beach earlier. 

The water’s freezing. Chris finds that out the hard way when Peter picks him up and tosses him in. He’s going to kill him. Chris sputters, already swimming towards Peter, determined to take him down— but he doesn’t have to bother. Peter swims towards him in long, smooth strokes, laughing his head off. 

Chris catches him by the waist. Before Peter can say anything, he kisses him to the background track of hooting and catcalling from the shore.

“Love you too,” he says.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Returning to the sunshine house is another kind of homecoming. 

“It’s been pretty dull unless you care about stuff like sprinkler ban evasion,” Leslie tells them. 

“Sprinkler ban evasion is a staple of California,” Peter says to her, straight-faced. 

She makes a face at him, reaches into the bushes and pulls out a cat from somewhere within. It’s a flame point ragdoll, blinking its big blue eyes at them and meowing. Stella instantly sits up, alert, ears pricked. “Oh, and I got a cat.” 

Peter glances at Chris, who reflexively says, “We are not getting a cat,” and realises he’s been had when Peter throws his head back and laughs. Stella barks, happy and loud, straining at the end of her leash to sniff at the cat. They greet each other cautiously, Chris warning her to behave. 

Life settles back into a normal pattern. The days are crammed full of little things— working at the shop, teaching Stella a variety of useless, useful, and complex tricks. And Peter, always Peter. Peter bringing him flowers for no discernible reason, the rote routine of classes and assignments, Peter grinning at him and flushed with pleasure.

Happiness creeps up on Chris without him even realising it. When he comes home at the end of the day now, what greets him isn’t a sense of dread nor trying to anticipate what sort of mood Gerard would be in, but Stella’s enthusiastic tail wagging and kisses, or Peter calling out to him and telling him to come into the kitchen to taste whatever he’s made for dinner.

He doesn’t forget about hunting or hunters, but that Chris, the one who stomped through mud and rain and filth with a gun in his hand and his heart in his throat isn’t the Chris who walks Stella with Peter and says hi to his neighbours and has baristas that recognise him at the cafe closest to their house. He has a library card and a fixed home address and doesn’t have to fight monsters in the dark. Sometimes he’s guilty about that— sometimes he thinks about the lives he could be saving. 

“You can’t save everyone in the world, Chris,” Peter says after he catches Chris wallowing in his own guilt and forces his deep dark secrets out of him with his usual knack. “So what if it’s selfish? What’s wrong with being selfish?” 

“I’m not you,” Chris says. 

“You’re a better person than I could ever be,” Peter agrees readily. “I’m glad you stopped hunting even if you were pretty hot with a gun.” 

“Really, Peter?” Chris arches an eyebrow. 

“I think that hunting would have crushed you eventually. Something would have happened sooner or later that would make you question whether or not you were doing the right thing. Or you would have lost the goodness in you, hidden it so deep inside that it couldn’t affect you anymore.” 

“And you knew all of that when you were seventeen.” 

“Well,” says Peter, “not when I was seventeen. Mostly I just wanted you for myself. But even then I could see that hunting was going to kill you.” 

Hunting is what killed his mother, what kills most hunters, Chris doesn’t bother to say. Peter already knows. And like usual, Peter seems to know him better than he knows himself. Laid bare by the truth and by Peter, Chris doesn’t know what else to say other than, “Good thing you stole me then.” 

“I was terrified you would say no.” 

They’ve never talked about this. Chris has never told Peter that he thought about saying no a million times before, thought about not showing up in Boston. But Peter did this for him: he moved thousands of miles from his pack and home, did everything he possibly could to keep Chris safe. It’s like Peter said. So what if his reasons for doing it were selfish? 

“Doesn’t matter anymore,” he tells Peter, “I said yes and I’d say it again every time.” 

Peter kisses him. They lay in the embrace of each other’s arms, listening to each other breathe in the dark. This isn’t teenage infatuation anymore. Maybe it never was. The bloom of love is has taken root in him, set down in rich soil and basked in sunlight and being watered and fed, flowered. Peter is the sun shining down on him, and Chris, being human, can’t help but love him. 

The old paranoia rears its head again that night.

Chris can never pinpoint what causes it. Talking about hunting and about his past isn’t a precise trigger. The paranoia strikes at random, every instinct screaming danger at him even in the most peaceful of moments, and like he was raised to do, he responds. He wakes up in the middle of the night, going straight from unconscious to alert. It takes him a second to realise why he's woken up. 

Stella has abandoned her post on the bed at the foot of the bed and is standing at the bedroom door, growling and pawing at the door. Peter is fast asleep, cheek mushed into his pillow and dark hair unruly. Chris sighs and slides out of bed, letting her out. She bolts down the stairs and sits in front of the back door, vigilant. Chris automatically reaches for a weapon that isn’t at his side. 

Something topples over outside. Stella barks, the rumble of it like a clap of thunder. Chris doesn’t see any movement in the yard. He’s debating nudging the door open when Peter pads into the kitchen, rubbing his eyes and yawning. 

“What are you two doing?” he says. Stella whines again and herds both of them away from the door, furry body bumping their thighs. Peter grabs her collar and holds her. 

“Someone’s outside,” Chris says. 

Peter cocks his head, listening. He relaxes and pets Stella. “Raccoons.” Before Chris can get a word in edgewise, Peter opens the back door. Stella shoots out. 

Chris swears. He goes after Stella just in time to catch a glimpse of a trio of raccoons scrambling up the fence. The garbage bin is on its side, trash strewn on the walk. Stella chases the raccoons along the length of the fence, leaping up and doing her best to catch them. Chris leaves her to it, righting the bin. His hands are shaking. 

“Chris,” Peter says, touching him on the shoulder. Chris flinches; he can’t stop it. But Peter doesn’t recoil in turn, only flattens his palm over the nape of Chris’s neck and holds him by it, firm and grounding. “It’s just raccoons.” 

“I know.” Chris doesn’t mean it. 

“Let’s walk the perimeter.” 

The small yard is devoid of disturbance, the racoons departed. The two of them round the house, past the side door leading into the garage. Chris takes the lead, walking light on the balls of his feet. Peter follows. They circle the house, pausing in front of the street. Streetlights pool on the pavement, puddles of yellow casting shadow beyond their reach. Nothing stirs. 

Chris breathes out a faint sigh once they’re in the backyard again. Stella snuffles at his fingers and he pats her absently. In the back of his mind, the fear is still there: that his father will find him, will find Peter and hurt him. He isn’t afraid of what Gerard would do to him, but if anything ever happens to Peter because of him, he wouldn’t be able to forgive himself. 

“Sorry,” he says, “guess it really was just raccoons.” 

Peter takes a second too long to answer, eyes assessing Chris. “At least we’ve gotten ourselves an excellent new alarm system.” He crouches and croons at Stella, “You’ll keep us safe, won’t you, Stella?” 

Her tail thumps on the lawn but she doesn’t leave Chris’s side. 

“All right, everyone inside,” Peter says. 

“Don’t run out like that next time,” Chris says after they’ve gotten back into bed. “Let me go first.”

“It makes more sense for me to go out first. I heal, you don’t.”

“Not from everything.” 

“Most things.” 

“Wolfsbane,” Chris says, “a bullet to the head. Being sliced in half. Electricity. Any kind of trauma that hits your system fast and hard enough to beat your healing.” 

Peter takes Chris’s hand and presses it to his chest. “Nothing’s going to happen to me, Chris. I’m right here.” 

The beat of Peter’s heart is steady under his palm. Chris closes his eyes and focuses on it. Tries not to think of it going still and Peter’s body cold from rigor mortis, the blue of his eyes glassy and unseeing. 

Just because he has what he wants doesn’t mean that he can’t lose it.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Two weeks into shadowing Peter whenever possible, showing up conveniently on campus to pick him up or join him for dinner, Chris watches Peter disappear into a new building. An inconspicuous one, a low set of offices that stack three storeys high. Peter gets inside the elevator; the doors close and Chris enters the lobby.

The elevator stops on the third floor. Chris hesitates and takes the stairs. The exertion is good, clean. He doesn’t know what Peter could be doing here. Not much going on in here and Chris can’t think of why Peter would be on this side of town. His uncle lives in a different area. Aside from this deviation, Peter’s routine has been normal. It’s probably nothing. But just in case, doesn’t matter that Peter’s perfectly good at getting himself out of the sticky situations he gets himself into, Chris wants to be sure. 

He stops at the top of the stairwell. Peter might have heard him, but Peter is also so used to the sound of Chris’s heartbeat that he told Chris once he doesn’t notice it unless he’s concentrating on it. 

All quiet. 

But when Chris exits the stairway, Peter’s standing in front of one of the doors, thumbs tucked in his jeans pockets. Chris’s brain short circuits. 

“It’s just like you to take the stairs,” Peter says. 

“You knew I was following you.” 

“Werewolf, remember?” Peter is looking at Chris again like he’s dissecting him; Chris hates it when he looks at him like that. “Give me a little more credit, Chris. Of course I’m going to notice if something is bothering you.” 

“I’m fine,” Chris says. 

“No, you’re not.” 

“What are you doing here?” 

Peter bites back words, Chris sees him do it. He pulls a business card from his pocket and hands it to Chris. The words on it read Rosalia Morrell, MD and Psychiatrist. The gold lettering matches the plaque by the door Peter is standing next to. 

“I don’t need a shrink,” says Chris, his fingers numb. “This isn’t funny.” 

“It isn’t a joke.” Peter rests his hand on Chris’s hip. “I think you need someone to talk to. Someone who can help you the way I can’t. You’re jumping at everything, you’re following me and missing class when you don’t need to. What Gerard did to you is still haunting you. You were raised to be a child soldier, Chris. Rosa’s in the know, so you don’t have to worry about keeping everything a secret.” 

“I was doing it to keep you safe. Gerard is still out there—”

“He isn’t even in the country right now, you know that.” 

“There’s nothing wrong with me.” The business card crumples in Chris’s fist. He’s shaking, shrugging Peter’s hand off of him. 

“Chris—” 

“I’ll stop following you.” 

Chris turns on his heel and thunders down the stairs. He doesn’t realise the business card is still in his hand until he pries his nails from his palm, tiny crescents filling with blood. The cardstock, crumpled, drops to the ground. He barely registers the walk home and snaps at Stella when she tries to lick him once he gets through the door. Every part of him is agitated. He isn’t broken. There’s nothing wrong with him. Following Peter might have been taking things too far, but there are hunters other than Gerard. Like Peter could blame him for being worried when he started sprouting fur and fangs at anyone who even looked at Chris wrong. 

There isn’t anything wrong with him. 

There isn’t. 

Chris weeds the garden even though it’s January and icy and miserable, forces Stella from her spot in front of the door when he vacuums the rug there, and throws himself into everything that requires only muscle memory and the minimal amount of thought from him. He tries to compartmentalise, tries to sort his emotions into neat little boxes and file them all away, but it only works half as well as it should. Those boxes overflow, spitting his feelings right back out at him. The lids don’t shut.

Chris hates Peter, just a little, for making him feel. 

“Where’s your other half?” Leslie asks while she’s unpacking groceries from her car into the house and Chris is giving the motorcycle a tune-up it doesn’t need. 

Chris shrugs, mutters that he doesn’t know. 

“Lover’s spat, huh?” Leslie tsks. “Communication is key, I’m just saying. But that’s probably too much to ask for from a pair of proud blockheads. Boys.” 

Chris starts to pull ingredients out of the fridge methodically at around five o’clock, glancing towards the door every so often. Peter usually shows up around this time and joins him, but he doesn’t tonight. Maybe he’s running late. Chris wishes he would call if he was. 

He makes dinner for two, eating his portion methodically. It tastes like cardboard. Chris scrapes the leftovers off into Stella’s bowl and washes his plate. Peter’s portion sits untouched at the table. Night has descended outside. The moon is full. Worry seizes Chris and he gets to his feet, heading towards the door. He should drop by Peter’s dorm, make sure that Peter is at least safe there even if he isn’t here. Or call. A list of numbers is taped to the inside of the kitchen cupboard above the phone, neat rows of numbers in order of importance: the Hale family phone number, Peter’s great-uncle’s, so on and so forth. The number for Peter’s dorm is halfway down the list. Chris has long since memorised it.

He picks up the phone, dials two digits, and puts the receiver back down in its cradle.

Excessive paranoia. Chris can practically hear the two words rolling off of his tongue and it makes the anger flare up in him suddenly. Everything he’s done is to keep Peter safe. Was that so wrong? It isn’t paranoia if it’s justified. 

But is it justified? Is Peter right? There hasn’t been a single sign of hunters around the area for over a year. The raccoons were just raccoons. 

Chris retreats back into the kitchen. Stella refuses to be coaxed to his side. She takes to waiting at the door in a sprawl of fur and canine moping, staring at it in solemn expectancy. Chris refuses to do the same.

An hour passes by. 

Two. Then three. 

The ticking of the kitchen clock is interminable. Chris gets up and puts saran wrap over Peter’s plate and shoves it into the fridge because he’ll go crazy if he keeps sitting there. Then he takes the clock down and removes the batteries. 

Peter is probably snug in his bed at Adams House. Maybe he isn’t even thinking of Chris. There are plenty of other people around him, school and basketball to keep him occupied. Peter doesn’t need Chris like Chris needs him. Peter has family, has people who love him, is charming and liked wherever he goes. 

Chris doesn’t have that same knack with people. He doesn’t let them in. Other than Peter, who does he have? A father that led him to the monsters instead of shielding him from them. A sister he no longer knows. A mother six feet under, her memory a ghost on the best days. He sees enemies everywhere he turns, jumps at raccoons, and sleeps with a knife tucked between the mattress and the bedframe. 

Normal people don’t do that. 

Peter is right. Something is wrong with Chris, something fundamental missing or beaten down in him or starved without the chance to grow.

And now he’s going to lose Peter because of it. 

The thought of it sends him into a panic. He puts his head in his hands and struggles to breathe, shoulders heaving. He doesn’t hear Stella going crazy at the front door, barking and whining with joy. 

“Chris? Why are you sitting in the dark?” Light floods the room. 

Chris blinks, dazed. His chest is tight and it hurts like someone’s got a hand around his heart and squeezing and he’s hyperventilating, sucking in air like nobody’s business. He looks up at Peter, a bright halo from the lights ringing his head. Makes it hard to see Peter’s face properly. 

“Chris,” Peter says again, this time with an undercurrent of sharp concern. He kneels before Chris, enveloping his hands. “Breathe with me, Chris. Come on.” 

Chris pitches forward against Peter, shuddering against his shoulder, face pushed blindly against his neck. Peter’s speaking but Chris isn’t hearing his words, only the murmur of his voice. Gradually, he starts to calm. The tidal wave of panic recedes the longer Peter stays with him, solid and reassuring, hand passing over his back. 

He pulls his face back, blinking blearily. Peter’s face swims into focus. The spots in his vision are fading. Peter is really here. Chris’s entire body is stiff. He doesn’t know how long he’s been sitting at the kitchen table, thinking the worst. It doesn’t matter if Peter’s still furious because he’s here, standing in the kitchen of their house, their dog at his heels. 

He’s unresisting when Peter pulls him from the kitchen chair and guides him to their room, laying them down on their bed. The digital clock on the nightstand reads just past one in the morning, neon green letters leaving trails of blazing colour in his vision. Peter doesn’t stop touching him, running his hands through Chris’s hair and over him, nuzzling his neck and murmuring soft reassurances, _I’m here, I’m here_ over and over again. 

“You didn’t even call,” Chris finally manages to say.

“I was upset. I needed some space to cool off and think and I thought you did too.” 

Chris can’t help clutching Peter just that much tighter and laughing, the sound all wrong and choked off. 

“It was selfish of me,” Peter says. 

“You’re always a selfish asshole,” Chris mumbles. 

“I didn’t think you would—” Peter breaks off. 

“Have a meltdown?” Because that’s what Chris did. Self consciousness prickles at him, a hot flush of shame sweeping through him at his own lack of coping mechanisms. 

Peter cuddles closer, resting his palm on Chris’s cheek. “Don’t. It was my fault, I should have called you.” 

“I don’t think I can do this anymore,” Chris says. 

Peter is quiet until he says, “You don’t have to do it alone, I’m always going to be here for you. Just— let me help you, Chris. I want to.“

Chris nods, words clogging up in his throat, but that’s all he needs to do anyway. The understanding is right there in Peter’s gaze, tender and unconditional. Peter couldn’t have known half of what he was getting into when he wouldn’t leave Chris alone all those years ago, but now he does. Chris feels flayed open and exposed, all of his vulnerabilities on display and pulled out from his cracked open shell. But if there is anyone in the world he doesn’t mind seeing him like this, it’s Peter. 

Peter, who kisses Chris like he’s something precious instead of an utter wreck. Who presses Chris down against the mattress and under his weight and takes him apart with his lips and hands and touch, but will always, always put him back together.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
In the morning, Peter smiles at him from his pillow, sleep creased and tousle-haired. Chris laces their hands together between them and goes back to sleep.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Full moon in Beacon Hills. 

The entire Hale pack is assembled at the Nemeton, the some of younger werewolves tumbling around on awkward, oversized wolf paws and trying to pull each other’s tails while the human children mock growled and bared their teeth. Peter’s youngest cousin, Lucy, was so small she could sit astride her father’s back, tiny hands clenched in russet fur. 

Peter is restless, nudging Chris on the hip every so often with his big black head, grumbling in his throat when Chris tells him he can’t read his mind. Not that he’d have to to guess what has Peter all twisted up. Some of the adults are in a similar state, roving the clearing and sniffing the air. Human or wolf, the same crackle of anticipation affects them all. 

“It’s kind of a big deal,” Andrew, Peter’s brother, tells Chris. 

“Yeah, I figured.” Chris pats Peter on the flank like he does sometimes to Stella. “How much longer?” 

“Should be any minute now. But you know how Mom and Talia like their dramatic entrances.” 

Chris keeps himself from telling Andrew that it seems like the only person the dramatic streak missed in his family is him. Just barely.

But Andrew must see it on his face anyway because he laughs and claps Chris on the shoulder. 

A howl winds through the night. The pack stills, a hush descending upon them. Another howl joins the first. Peter has gone still, ears pricked and alert. 

Two wolves trot into the clearing. Louisa is big with grey around her muzzle, her coat the same inky black fading into silvers and greys lower on her torso as Peter’s. Talia has the same dark colouring all throughout apart from two rings of white around her eyes. They meet in front of the Nemeton, their noses touching. 

Chris leans forward. No one says a word. They watch Talia and Louisa circle the Nemeton before meeting where they started once more. Louisa rests one paw on top of Talia’s head. Her eyes spark up into vivid, alpha red while Talia’s burn a gentle gold. The power shivers in the air, caught between the two. Chris’s skin prickles. 

Red fades into the orange of a banked fire, and gold bleeds red. 

Louisa huffs and bops Talia’s nose, tail wagging. She barks once, then throws her head back in another long howl. As if on cue the entire pack joins in, even the humans, compelled by their bond to join in and celebrate the new alpha of the Hale pack. The song spirals up into the night sky and reverberates loud in Chris’s bones, exaltation that isn’t entirely his own surging through him. It’s heady and exciting and like nothing he has ever felt before. 

Everyone swarms Talia. She sits, eyes burning, tongue lolling out of her mouth. Peter is winding his way towards her, Chris trailing in his wake. He runs his hand down her spine and Peter headbutts her shoulder. Talia snorts at both of them. It’s pretty affectionate, Chris thinks. Even while shifted the werewolves have expressive faces.

After the greetings end, Talia stands. The entirety of the pack flows with her away from the Nemeton and into the preserve, human and werewolf and all. 

Chris wakes up at dawn, sunlight pricking his eyes. Peter is draped over him, drooling a little, dirt smudged on his face and some of his hair sticking up in a cowlick that Chris smooths down for him. Around them are werewolves in various states of still four-legged or naked and passed out on the forest floor. Louisa is right by Chris’s head and meets his gaze with a soft whuff, tail thumping on the grass. Chris groans, stretching. He aches with the exertion of someone who has run with wolves all night long, his arm and shoulder asleep from Peter lying on him. Who is still dead to the world and dead weight too. 

The birds are starting to chirp. Chris shuts his eyes again. He didn’t bring his sunglasses.

“You should come visit us out in Boston now that you have time,” Chris says to Louisa. “There’s a guest room and plenty of space. Peter would like it, he misses you when he’s there.” 

She rumbles.

“I’d like it too,” Chris says.

Louisa nudges his forehead with her cold nose and he bats at her without thinking, getting his fingers licked for it. Air displaces by him and Chris knows without looking that Louisa has shifted back. 

“You let me get Talia nice and settled in and I’ll be out on the coast before you two boys have time to clean up the house,” she says, patting his cheek.  
  
  
  
  
  
Louisa makes good on her word. She comes to Boston a few months later and brings half the pack with her for the week before and following Chris’s graduation.

“This is the ugliest thing you’ve ever worn,” Peter says, plucking at Chris’s robe. “I’m taking it off.” 

“Honey, you leave that thing on Chris until I’m done with the pictures, or I’m disowning you.” 

“You wouldn’t, I’m your favourite.” 

Louisa ignores Peter and waves at Chris. “Get in the picture, come on.” When Chris does and Stella follows obediently at his heels, she says, “See, Peter? There’s my two better children that I’ll trade you in for.” 

Peter elbows him in the side. “Brown noser.” 

Chris flings his arm around Peter and pulls him close. “The gown brings out the colour of my eyes.” 

“Bullshit,” Peter says, but he’s smiling. 

Chris grins back at him. The camera goes off and Louisa makes a satisfied noise. 

“Now, the rest of you get in there.” 

The crowd of Hales in assembly, all the way from Beacon Hills— Peter’s older brother Andrew with Laura and Derek in tow, Peter’s aunt and uncle, (great)-uncle Seth, a handful of others— crowd into the frame. Stella wags her tail, crowding in close and sitting on Peter’s feet. 

“Say cheese,” Louisa says loudly. 

They take a million pictures and then some. Louisa sends him and Peter copies of all of them. Chris folds up the one of the two of them, plus Stella, grinning at each other and keeps it in his wallet. Peter frames the group photo of everyone who could make it out from Beacon Hills from the pack squished into the shot surrounding Chris and hangs it in the hallway right next to his matching photo. 

Chris’s eyes glance at the picture every time he leaves the house: he’s smiling hard in it, Peter right by his side, everyone else beaming around them. He’s struck by how much he looks like a part of them, like he belongs. 

One of the pack. 

Not alone. 

It’s been six years since he stepped off of that bus in Boston. In that time, he quietly packed as much of his old life away as he could to let it settle and gather dust. There isn’t much he misses from it— Peter is the one person he couldn’t bear to leave behind, but Peter is here with him. Around Chris are people who love him.

Chris has his eyes too wide open to pretend that there won’t be a day when his father finds him. He’ll do whatever he can to put that off and prepare and be prepared for it, but for now. For now, he savours the fact that for once in his life, he has what he wants.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to everyone who made it to the end. I’ve seen tons of fics before where Chris and Peter plan to run away together but never quite make it, and wanted to write one where they did. So here it is!! There’s some things I love about it, some things I hate, BUT IT’S DONE.
> 
> I did extensive research on Massachusetts, Cambridge, and Boston, but if I got something wrong, it’s because I’m not a native.
> 
> Stella looks like [this.](https://www.instagram.com/p/Bfq-RJPDfji/)
> 
> This is actually part one out of two; I’m going to write a follow-up in Peter’s POV next. That’s where all the action will happen (like Gerard, pack politics, and etc.)


End file.
